You break your ass

Sometimes you have a bad day and you need something to batter you on the dancefloor until you are physically exhausted and emotionally renewed. Here's one of my favorite salves: Dionne - Feel Da Rain (D'Pac Dub). It's repetitive, spacey, hard and funky. Thankfully, it's short; this dub has only one idea. It's a really good idea, though, and it outshines the other mixes.

Check it out for a piece of the classic 1990s Chicago / Detroit mix-up style perfected at KMS records under Chez Damier's management.

Dionne - Feel Da Rain (D'Pac Dub)

-Leo

Marc Kinchen

Between 1992 and 1996, Marc Kinchen shit gold all over house music. He produced hundreds of remixes for freaking everybody, and they were all awesome. His trademark technique was to edit all meaning out of the vocal track and let the voice emote abstractly. I think that every house head probably has their own favorite MK dubs. Now, his famous sounds - the cut up vocals, the melodic basslines, and the synthesized brass stabs - are tied to that era, but they still sound good.

If, like me, you ever believed that Kinchen literally shit gold, a new interview at Soul Clap may bear you out. Here he speaks about the creation of "Push the Feeling On (The Dub of Doom)," his big hit for The Nightcrawlers:

My studio was a mess. I was kinda mad that they didn’t like it, so I did [a new] one real quick, in like 30 minutes. I didn’t like the vocals so I just cut it up. Everything I did was a first pass, from the horns to the keys to the sample. Plus, I was working out of only one speaker. I just did the mix sent it to my manager and I was out.

...

I try to take that approach when I do dance stuff. I don’t put alot of thought in to my dance stuff. It’s more just a feeling, so I just go for it and hopefully it ends up working for whatever reason.

He also says that he was making one remix each week for 15-20 thousand dollars each. Here's some of that gold.

His dub of Agolo by Angelique Kidjo:

This next one is less adventurous than normal for Kinchen, but I guess it's hard to figure out how to change something perfect. It's basically a house remix of Alicia Myers's great love song "I Want To Thank You." The vocals have been rerecorded by Latrece B. Kinchen, so I guess this is a family affair.

- Leo

Dr. Mbee & Dr. Duda

I first became aware of the new musical waves that are stirring in South Africa when my friend Dean invited me to participate in a Cool Places Radio episode focusing on Kwaito, house and dance music in South Africa, Zambia, and the surrounding area (see the playlist here). This is one mix that I didn't get around to playing on the show, but it has been continuously blowing my mind ever since. A combination of early 90s British house and African rhythms, with a huge buildup of phaser barreling its way through the middle, splooging its way into one ear and out the other...

Enjoy,

Camilla